1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus and method for detecting changes in a target site in response to interaction with a target beam of light, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for detecting real time changes in a target site in response to interaction with a target beam of coherent light.
2. Description of Related Art
Pathologies of the Eye: There are several pathologies of the eye that cause some form of visual impairment up to and including blindness. Pathologies currently treated with lasers include glaucoma and retinal disorders. Glaucoma disorders treatable with laser include open angle glaucoma, angle closure glaucoma and neovascular-refractory glaucoma. Retinal disorders treatable with laser include diabetic retinopathy, macular edema, central serous retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), etc. Diabetic retinopathy represents the major cause of severe vision loss (SVL) for people up to 65 years of age, while AMD represents the major cause of SVL in people between 65 and 80 years of age. More than 32,000 Americans are blinded from diabetic retinopathy alone, with an estimated 300,000 diabetics at risk of becoming blind. The incidence of AMD in the USA is currently estimated at 2 million new cases per year, of which 1.8 million are with the xe2x80x9cdryxe2x80x9d form and 200,000 are with the xe2x80x9cwetxe2x80x9d form, also defined as choroidal neovascularization (CNV). CNV causes subretinal hemorrhage, exudates and fibrosis any of that can lead to SVL and legal blindness. A widely used form of laser treatment for retinal disorders is called laser photocoagulation (P.C.).
Current Modalities Of Laser P.C.: Laser P.C. has become the standard treatment for a number of retinal disorders such as diabetic retinopathy, macular edema, central serous retinopathy, retinal vein occlusion and CNV.
Laser P.C. is a photo-thermal process, in which heat is produced by the absorption of laser energy by targeted tissues, for the purpose of inducing a thermal xe2x80x9ctherapeutic damagexe2x80x9d, which causes biological reactions and ultimately, the beneficial effects. Conventional retinal P.C. relies on some visible xe2x80x9cblanchingxe2x80x9d of the retina as the treatment endpoint and can be defined as Ophthalmoscopically Visible Endpoint Photocoagulation or OVEP. Since the retina is substantially transparent to most wavelengths used in laser P.C., its xe2x80x9cblanchingxe2x80x9d is not caused directly by the laser. Visible xe2x80x9cblanchingxe2x80x9d is the sign that the normal transparency of the retina has been thermally damaged by the conduction of heat generated underneath, at super-threshold level, in laser absorbing chromophores (i.e. melanin) contained in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and in choroidal melanocytes.
The endpoint of visible retinal xe2x80x9cblanchingxe2x80x9d is a practical way to assess the laser treatment, but it also constitutes a disadvantageous and unnecessary retinal damage, which in turn results in a number of undesirable adverse complications including some vision loss, decreased contrast sensitivity and reduced visual fields in a substantial number of patients.
A discussion of the thermal damage resulting in the eye from laser P.C. treatment will now be presented to better illustrate the current OVEP methods, the effects, and the possible ways for limiting or avoiding the current drawbacks.
Retina xe2x80x9cblanchingxe2x80x9d is the result of the spread by conduction of a thermal elevation created around laser absorbing chromophores underneath the retina. The thermal elevation can be controlled by laser: (i) irradiance (power density), (ii) exposure time and (iii) wavelength. High thermal elevations are normally created with current OVEP clinical protocols that are aimed to produce visible endpoints ranging from intense retinal whitening (full thickness retinal burn) to barely visible retinal changes. Although the mechanisms underpinning the efficacy of laser P.C. are still poorly understood, laser P.C. has been proven therapeutically effective and constitutes the standard-of-care in preventing SVL in various ocular disorders. However, because of the drawback of iatrogenic visual impairment due to thermal damage to the neurosensory retina, conventional OVEP laser treatment is presently considered and administered only late in the course of the disease, when has become xe2x80x9cclinically significantxe2x80x9d and the benefit-to-risk ratio justifies the associated negative effects.
Recent clinical studies have suggested that patients with certain types of diabetes, xe2x80x9cdryxe2x80x9d AMD and xe2x80x9cwetxe2x80x9d AMD could benefit from a much earlier treatment. As an example, Laser P.C. is now experimentally administered to patients diagnosed with xe2x80x9cdryxe2x80x9d AMD presenting with high-risk drusen, as a prophylactic treatment to prevent or delay the progression toward the xe2x80x9cwetxe2x80x9d form and the consequent SVL. Obviously, more aggressive therapeutic approaches with earlier treatments would easily gain acceptance and be adopted by the ophthalmic community if new user friendly and less damaging laser devices could be available to allow the easy administration of minimally invasive treatment protocols, which would become the new standard-of-care.
New hypotheses on the mechanism of action of laser P.C. postulate that full thickness retinal damage may not be needed to obtain beneficial effects and that any ophthalmoscopically visible retina xe2x80x9cblanchingxe2x80x9d is only a convenient treatment end-point, redundant for the therapeutic effectiveness.
Current laser devices and treatment protocols do not allow to selectively address laser absorbing structures only (primarily melanin containing cells, such as RPE cells and choroidal melanocytes) and to confine the thermal elevation to avoid unnecessary thermal injury to the neurosensory retina. Thus, there is a need for a new laser device and treatment protocols, which can allow more selective targeting and confinement of the laser thermal effects, to avoid or minimize the thermal damage to the overlying neurosensory retina. The present invention provides the solution to this problem by providing a method and apparatus that allows the physician to perform treatments with the minimal therapeutic damage (MTD) confined around the RPE cells and without appreciable damage to the neurosensory retina. This can be defined as Non Ophthalmoscopically Visible Endpoint Photocoagulation or NOVEP treatment, to differentiate from the conventional OVEP treatment.
Preliminary studies on animals with a near IR 810 nm MicroPulse diode laser beam demonstrated the ability to consistently create therapeutic lesions confined around the RPE cells (as studied by light microscopy) without causing apparent damage to the overlying retina. The laser impacts were not visible by slit lamp bio-microscopy at the time of laser delivery.
Recent clinical studies have reported that sub-clinical (invisible) laser lesions created with a NOVEP treatment with the 810 nm MicroPulse diode laser are therapeutically as effective as the conventional OVEP treatment in resolving a variety of retinal disorders. This suggests that the damages to the neurosensory retina created with conventional OVEP treatment are indeed redundant and should be avoided. Unfortunately, the absence of a visible endpoint during the laser treatment renders difficult the choice of the proper irradiation dosage for each individual patient, leaves the physician with no tangible sign of achieved proper threshold for a MTD and creates a potential problem in case of retreatment. Thus there is a need for a device and a method that allow the real-time detection of the achieved sub-clinical (invisible) MTD during the treatment, able to control and terminate the laser emission at a given pre-settable MTD threshold. Furthermore, since from initial clinical studies it was reported that some lesions did not become apparent to slit lamp examination nor to Fluorescein Angiography even after several months, there is also a need for a device that can allow the recording of all successfully placed MTD applications and of their location in the ocular fundus.
Conventional OVEP treatment has proven to be effective in preventing or limiting SVL, but causes undesirable collateral damage. The damage of intense laser burns not only destroys healthy retinal tissue causing some degree of vision deterioration, it may also trigger neovascularization, a serious and highly undesirable event leading to further loss of vision. The mechanism by which laser P.C. leads to the beneficial therapeutic effect is poorly understood. It was believed that some damage to the retina is needed for an effective laser PC. Emerging hypotheses and recent clinical works suggest that a minimum damage, confined around the RPE and with sparing of the neurosensory retina, can suffice to trigger the pathophysiologic responses resulting in the therapeutic beneficial effects of PCT.
The threshold of cellular damage for the beneficial outcome is generally not known and many physicians striving to do no harm are now engaged in the search for the minimal dose response (xe2x80x9chow little is enoughxe2x80x9d). The realization that xe2x80x9chotxe2x80x9d laser burns can damage the integrity of Bruchs membrane and trigger iatrogenic subretinal neovascularizations has prompted the adoption of xe2x80x9clighterxe2x80x9d laser PC endpoints. New NOVEP techniques, using repetitive very short laser pulses and sub-clinical (invisible) endpoints, have been advocated and clinically tried to reduce or eliminate unnecessary damage to the neurosensory retina and to Bruch""s membrane. Initial results have shown therapeutically effectiveness comparable to conventional OVEP treatments.
NOVEP laser treatments are appealing, but extremely difficult to do with current laser photocoagulator devices and suffer three significant drawbacks:
(i) the lack of a visible endpoint deprive the physicians of a reassuring feedback;
(ii) the lack of visible sign of treatment makes grid treatments difficult to perform, to complete and to trace in case of retreatment
(iii) NOVEP laser lesions are spatially confined (no thermal spread as with conventional OVEP and consequently theoretically a much higher number of applications is required for the same area coverage.
There is a need for an apparatus and method for detecting real time changes in a target site in response to interaction with a target beam of coherent light. There is a further need for an apparatus and method for detecting real time changes and quantification of changes in a target site in response to interaction of the target site with a coherent beam of light. There is yet a further need for an apparatus and method for detecting real time changes, quantification of the changes and discrimination of the changes in the target site in response to interaction of the target site with a coherent beam of light.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for detecting real time changes in a target site in response to interaction with a target beam of coherent light.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for detecting real time changes and quantification of changes in a target site in response to interaction of the target site with a coherent beam of light.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for detecting real time changes, quantification of the changes and discrimination of the changes in the target site in response to interaction of the target site with a coherent beam of light.
These and other objects of the present invention are achieved in an optical system for use with a target site that includes a laser source producing an output beam and a reflector. A beam splitter is positioned to receive the output beam and splits the output beam into a first beam incident on the reflector and a second beam incident on at least one point of the target site. The splitter is positioned to define a target site optical path from the splitter to the target site and a reference optical path from the splitter to the reflector. The splitter produces a combined beam from at least a portion of a reflected first beam received from the reflector that interacts with at least a portion of a reflected second beam received from the target site. A detector is coupled to the splitter and produces a signal representative of a longitudinal reflectivity profile of the target site. A feedback is coupled to the detector and the laser source. The feedback provides an a feedback signal to the laser source that controls an energy output of the laser source.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a method of detecting changes in a target site in response to interaction with a target beam of light splits an output beam from a laser source into a first beam and a second beam. The first beam is directed to a reflector which reflects a reflected first beam. The second beam is directed to a target site. At least a portion of the second beam creates a change in the target site and at least a portion is reflected from the target site as a reflected second beam. The first and second reflected beams are combined and interferometrically interacted. The output beam is adjusted in response to the interferometric interaction of the first and second reflected beams.